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Reoffenders

Volume 485: debated on Thursday 11 December 2008

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what the re-offending rate is for offenders (a) one year and (b) two years after leaving custody. (240695)

Table 1 as follows shows the one year reoffending rates for offenders leaving custody in the first quarter of the years 2000 to 2006 (data for 2001 are unavailable due to problems with archived data for community sentences). The table shows the proportion of offenders that committed at least one further offence and the number of further offences committed per 100 offenders.

Table 1: One year reoffending rates, offenders leaving custody, 2000-06

Number of offenders

Proportion of offenders offending (one year) (percentage)

Number of offences per 100 offenders (one year)

2000

15,727

51.4

245.5

2002

15,578

55.0

288.2

2003

14,358

53.9

279.1

2004

15,761

51.9

253.1

2005

14,595

49.1

228.5

2006

14,380

46.5

208.4

Two year reoffending rates are available for the 2000 to 2005 cohorts. For these cohorts, the only figures available are the proportion of offenders who committed a further offence within two years. These figures are shown in table 2 as follows.

Table 2: Two year reoffending rates, offenders leaving custody, 2000-05

Number of offenders

Proportion of offenders offending (two years) (percentage)

2000

16,527

64.8

2002

15,887

67.4

2003

15,305

65.8

2004

16,385

64.7

2005

14,713

62.1

It should be noted that comparisons between the one and two year rates should be interpreted with caution. This is due to a slight improvement in the method used to count offenders released from custody (or starting court orders under probation supervision) when we moved to measuring reoffending over one year rather than two.

Further information on the one year rates of reoffending can be found at;

http://www.justice.gov.uk/publications/reoffendingofadults.htm.

Further information on the two year rates can be found at;

http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs05/hosb2505.pdf

We have had real success in reducing the reoffending of offenders released from custody. Between 2000 and 2006 the number of reoffences committed by offenders released from custody has fallen 15.1 per cent.

Overall, the most recent reoffending statistics, published in September 2008, demonstrated that reoffending frequency fell among adult offenders in 2006.

The figures showed a 22.9 per cent. fall in the frequency rate from 189.4 to 146.1 offences per 100 offenders between 2000 and 2006.The number of adult reoffences classified as most serious fell 11.1 per cent. from 0.78 to 0.69 offences per 100 offenders.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what assessment he has made of the effect on reoffending rates of the change in the core day introduced in 2008. (242068)

The measurement of reoffending is taken over a period of a year therefore an analysis of the impact of the core day on reoffending, if any, will be available at the end of 2009.